First condition: The Reich President wanted, under all circumstances, that Herr Von Papen should become Vice Chancellor in this Cabinet. Apart from his sympathetic personality Herr Von Papen did not bring us anything, because there was no party behind him. But the Reich President demanded, beyond that, that Herr Von Papen should attend the presentation of the reports which the Führer, after being appointed Reich Chancellor, would have to make to the Reich President. But this was abandoned very quickly, and by the Reich President himself.
Secondly, the Reich President desired that the Foreign Office, independent of all parties, should be in the hands of Herr Von Neurath. Herr Von Neurath also brought us nothing in the way of political power, apart from his knowledge and ability.
Thirdly, the position of Prussian Prime Minister which, next to that of the Reich Chancellor was always the most important in Germany during the period after the World War, was likewise to be filled by the person of Herr Von Papen. Before the World War, as it is known, the offices of Reich Chancellor and Prussian Prime Minister were for these reasons always combined in one person.
Fourthly, the Reich President demanded that the office of Reich Defense Minister should also be in the hands of an independent person, a soldier; and he himself chose him, without our having anything to do with it, namely, General Von Blomberg, who at that time was at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. Herr Von Blomberg was not known personally either to the Führer or to me at that time.
Even though the essential and definitely most important posts in the Cabinet were thus already filled by persons in whose choice we had had no influence, still further demands developed in the course of the week. It was demanded that the Finance Ministry should be in the hands of Count Schwerin von Krosigk, again a man backed by no political party. The Ministry of Transportation was to be under Herr Von Eltz, to whom the same applied. The leader of the Stahlhelm, Seldte, was to be taken into the Cabinet. Certainly the Stahlhelm was a large and extensive movement, but not politically, and it was not represented by a single delegate in the Reichstag.
There was left, as a really political party, only the German National Party, with 36 seats—our only parliamentary ally, so to speak. Here too, extraordinary demands were made, which were in no correct proportion to the smallness of that party.
In the end we, as the strongest party at that time with 232 seats, were given only the following, as far as I remember: The office of Reich Chancellor of course; then Dr. Frick as Reich Minister of the Interior, in the Cabinet; and I third in the Reich Cabinet, with an assignment as Reich Commissioner for Aviation, a very small subordinate division, an insignificant branch of a small Aviation Department in the Ministry of Transport, but no department otherwise. But then I succeeded in becoming, without conditions attached, Prussian Minister of the Interior and thereby a political minister of the largest German state, for in the end Prussia was actually the place where the rise to internal power started.
It was so far an extraordinarily difficult affair. At the last moment the forming of the Cabinet threatened to fail because of two factors. The Führer had made the unconditional demand that shortly after the appointment of the new Cabinet a new Reichstag election should take place, knowing correctly that the Party would be greatly strengthened thereby and possibly could represent a majority by itself, and thus be in a position to form the government platform by parliamentary means.
Hugenberg, as leader of the German National Party, absolutely opposed this, knowing that his party would probably disappear more or less in this election. Even 5 minutes before the meeting of the Cabinet there was still danger that it would break up because of this. It was pure chance that at this moment the Reich President undertook to administer the oath to the new ministers; and so the Cabinet was formed.
The second danger threatened from Schleicher who, through his confidant, on the Sunday made the following offer to the Führer and me: He wanted to emphasize that the Reich President was not a sure factor as far as the new government was concerned; it would serve the purpose better if he—even though he had withdrawn the day before—were to join us to form a government now quite definitely not on a parliamentary basis of any kind, but rather on the basis of an entirely new situation, a coalition of the Reichswehr and the NSDAP.